FRANCIS GIVES BISHOPS 8 BEATITUDES TO LIVE BY

• “Blessed is the bishop who makes poverty and sharing his way of life, so that by his witness he is building up the kingdom of heaven.
• “Blessed is the bishop who is not afraid of tears streaming down his face, so that in them may be mirrored the pains of the people, the hard work of priests, finding God’s consolation in the embrace with those who suffer.
• “Blessed is the bishop who considers his ministry a service and not power, making meekness his strength, giving everyone the right to hold citizenship in his heart, to inhabit the land promised to the meek.
• “Blessed is the bishop who does not shut himself up in the palaces of governance, who does not become a bureaucrat who is more attentive to statistics than to faces, to procedures than to stories, who is seeking to fight alongside humanity for God’s dream of justice because the Lord, encountered in the silence of daily prayer, will be his nourishment.
• “Blessed is the bishop who has a heart for the misery of the world, who is not afraid to dirty his hands with the mud of the human soul in order to find God’s gold, who is not scandalized by the sin and frailty of others because he is aware of his own misery, so that the gaze of the Risen Crucified One will be a seal of infinite forgiveness for him.
• “Blessed is the bishop who banishes duplicity of heart, who avoids every ambiguous dynamic, who dreams of the good even in the midst of evil, because he will be able to rejoice in God’s countenance, discovering his reflection in every puddle of the city of mankind.
• “Blessed is the bishop who works for peace, who accompanies journeys of reconciliation, who sows the seed of communion in the heart of the presbytery, who accompanies a divided society along the path of reconciliation, who takes every man and woman of goodwill by the hand to build fraternity: God will recognize him as his son.
• “Blessed is the bishop who is not afraid to go against the tide for the sake of the Gospel, making his face ‘stern’ like that of Christ on his way to Jerusalem, without letting himself be held back by misunderstandings and obstacles because he knows that the kingdom of God advances in the contradiction of the world.”

PAT SAYS,

These beatitudes were not composed by Francis but he has adopted and recom ended them

The words that stand out:

POVERTY.

TRUE CLOSENNESS TO PRIESTS AND PEOPLE

HAVING A SERVICE OF MINISTRY AND NOT POWER.

NOT SHUT AWAY IN A PALACE.

BISHOP TO GET HIS HANDS DIRTY.

NO DUPLICITY.

CREATING UNITY, NOT DISUNITY.

PREPARED TO GO AGAINST THE TIDE.

How do readers feel our bishops in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales fair in living out these beatitudes?